Was just texting about this with a GOP strat today. Nearly every Republican I know is bewildered by what has become of their party. Not just the subservience to Trump, but essentially to Russia as well. It’s bizarre.
Some definitely have made the calculation that they’re getting what they want so it doesn’t matter. And I have talked to a handful who love what Trump is doing and see nothing wrong with it (or with Russia - they literally don’t care.)
Maybe that’s the new three-legged stool of the GOP: those who wildly love Trump and don’t believe or care what Russia does to us, those who don’t love him but love the tax cuts for the rich and the deregulation, and those who are in the party tribally but no longer OF the party.
The old three-legged stool was evangelical family values voters (now totally discredited by “mulligans”), tax cutters/libertarians (mainly the GOP elite) and defense hawks (Russia seems to have benched them though a handful of Boltonites still want to nuke NK and Iran...)
The question is whether the new trio of GOP groups is excited enough to vote in November without Trump on the ballot — and if group three stays home or just drifts away from the GOP into the independents.
One other thing I’ll add is that Republicans generally tend to be more authoritarian, so it may not be so shocking that they don’t go against their leader, which Trump is. @JohnWDean has written a ton about the authoritarian followers in the GOP.
Democrats tend to be more unruly and to savage their own leaders rather than follow them (just ask Nancy Pelosi, whose thanks for her historic success as House Speaker has been for some in her own party to hold her arms so the GOP can beat up on her.)
Or ask Obama who had almost no rear guard for eight years. The nature of the two parties is just different, which is why such starkly different people are attracted to them.
